Gods of Eden is a book that has only become possible due to the more liberal attitudes that are prevalent towards religion
and to a lesser extent history today. In a by gone age the ideas presented here would have at best condemned the author as a madman and at worst been seen as heretical. That may sound sensationalist but I think the same can be said of many books dealing with ancient history and religion, two subjects that are forever interlinked. Anyone pushing back the boundaries of mans beginnings, as author Andrew Collins attempts to do here will come into conflict with the neat accepted biblical version of the past, but there has been no better time to do so. This more relaxed modern attitude, however, has given rise to many radical
theories and strange arguments and the result of the fertile market they are destined for means that a lot of sub standard and flawed theories bombard the shelves, subjecting the potential reader to an avalanche of choice. Thankfully Andrew Collins is a name that has gained something of a good reputation, after a series of smaller works for minor publishers it was his book on the Nephilim of the Old Testament, “From The Ashes of Angels” that cemented his scholarly credibility. After pursuing a quest for a better understanding of a historical parallel to an ancient myth in “Gateway to Atlantis” he returns to the ancient Middle East with this book for an examination of Egypt’s earliest beginnings.
He sets out his table by explaining that ancient Egypt’s monument builders claimed that they had inherited their knowledge from an earlier group, that he calls the Elder Gods as they were viewed with a semi-mythical aura. However just as in “From the Ashes of Angels” he managed to offer credible alternative theories for who the fallen angels and Nephilim of the Old Testament were, here he attempts to illuminate this older culture, which bestowed the tools and trappings of civilization on the immerging peoples that would later become Egypt.
Some of the ideas here are not so new and have even moved beyond radical status to sit not far off of the borders of mainstream acceptability. Ideas such as an older inception date for many of the major monuments, including the sphinx and the pyramids is not a major new boundary to cross. The search for the Hall of Records, supposedly on the Giza plateau is also nothing startlingly new. When Collins moves into the areas of technology we do find ourselves presented with some fairly challenging ideas though. Ideas behind the actually movement of the building stones and drilling techniques whilst backed up with a lot of supporting information do remain a leap of faith that many will not be prepared to make. It is in these areas also that the theories move into new geographical areas. Paralleling theories based in Mexico and even Tibet, Collins draws on
evidence not normally brought into Egyptology and in doing so advocates a larger global culture in our pre-history that kick started emerging civilizations in a number of places across the world.
It is in this area that his book begins to totally justify itself. Even if you have problems accepting some of the fine detail he uses to back up his grander theories, I do and I like the man, it is the idea of an earlier widespread advanced culture that fascinates. Many ancient ideas and technologies seem to appear out of nowhere with no gradual evolution or development, the pyramids themselves have almost no evolutionary path but seem to have been created with immense perfection at the first attempt. The reason may be, and this is the thrust of much of Andrew Collins later work, that there is a whole culture, or series of cultures that history is blind too, either through a misinterpretation of evidence or maybe due to a natural erosion of evidence. That culture, now lost to our understanding of mans past, is the father of the Egyptian culture but also of many other ancient peoples across the globe. Ideas were bequeathed from this patron to the struggling states that we do see in our history books as being the birthplaces of civilization.
If all these seemingly disparate cultures have a common benefactor it would explain the similarities between them that shouldn’t be there. They are not coincidences or evidence of cultural cross contacts to any great extent, but or clear evidence that most ancient cultures have learnt at the feet of the same teacher. The book is fascinating and also an extension of ideas in “From The Ashes of Angels” so one book should encourage the reading of the other, in any order really. Some of the finer points may be challenging to our understanding of the world nut the main idea is very soundly thought out and remember that even ideas that now sit very easily in the mainstream where often once thought of as eccentric and radical.